formally sanctioned a war-feast for the warriors engaged in the skirmish of the 8th at Butler's Farm.

As the British squadron had sailed for Kingston to refit, and did not return when expected, the Indians of Lower Canada became urgent in their demands to be permitted to retire to their homes. Sasori, their spokesman, said on this occasion ;

"We, chiefs and warriors of the Seven Nations, salute you, and thank the Great Spirit. We had a great regard for the King.

"We came forward and met the enemy and were successful. We went to the Forty and there we divided, and you persuaded us to come forward again, and said that perhaps it would be but six days before we met the enemy again. We came. Our patience is at an end. The King has enemies below as well as here. This is the day our people begin to cut grass for their cattle, and we must prepare not to let our people and cattle starve.

"We do not mean to run away. We are too grateful. We took a good many things the other day. What are we to get?"

Claus assured them that he would request Sir John Johnson to assist their families in harvesting their hay and grain, and that they would be paid for the "things" they had captured, upon which they appeared perfectly satisfied for the moment. and agreed to remain with the army.

He complained that the native Indians set them an evil example, as they plundered the inhabitants without distinction, and then dispersed to their villages to enjoy their booty. Cattle and swine were wantonly slaughtered, and the wretched settlers living between the lines were reduced to a pitiable condition by their ravages and those of the enemy's foraging parties. "Our friends in the neighbourhood of the last scene,' " Claus wrote to Sir John Johnson on the 11th July, "are, I am afraid, now suffering. They are ordered from their habitations I am told."

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The slightest reverse often appears to have produced quite a disproportionate effect on the spirits of the American officials directing the conduct of the war. The British, back of Fort George," wrote Mr. Lovett, a member of Congress, from Washington, "have lately driven in the picket-guard, killed some and took forty or fifty attempting to reinforce the guard. They have also crossed to Black Rock and destroyed the stores there. The Postmaster-General this morning (July 17), relating to these things, exclaimed, seem as if the very devil is in our luck.'

It does

Skirmishes were a matter of daily, sometimes hourly occurrence. Almost every night a small party of Indians or light infantry would steal forward in the darkness until within musket-shot of an American picket, when they would discharge their pieces and run away to repeat this exploit in some other quarter. The entire camp was frequently aroused and put under arms, and this sometimes occurred more than once in the course of a single night.

An occasional glimpse is afforded of some of these affairs. On the 12th of July, Claus writes to Harvey:-"A party of Algonquin and Nipissing Indians, to the number of nineteen, with one interpreter, Langlade, who received a wound on the 8th, went forward yesterday towards Fort George, and fell in with a party of eight dragoons near Mr. Ball's. They killed two and took the quartermaster-sergeant prisoner, with two horses. The sergeant is a Frenchman, three years from France, and a shrewd fellow. The Nipissing chiefs wish to carry their prisoner and deliver him to Sir John Johnson. I promised to make their request known to the General and have the interpreters busy trying to get them to deliver him up."

Again at 8 o'clock on the evening of the same day, he wrote:-"A party of St. Joseph's Indians (10) are just returned from Ball's. They have been engaged with the enemy there, in number near a hundred. One of the Indians is mortally wounded."

The weakness of DeRottenburg's division prevented him from even attempting to do more than watch and harass his antagonist. When informed that the Americans had regained the superiority on Lake Ontario by the launch of new vessels, and that Yeo would be unable to co-operate in the investment of Fort George for several weeks at least, he began to fortify a position on Burlington Bay, to which he anticipated he would ultimately be obliged to retire, and to repair the roads in his rear to facilitate a retreat in an emergency. The piteous entreaties of Proctor at Detroit, menaced by overwhelming numbers, forced him to detach several companies of the 41st to his support. Their departure left him with but two weak battalions of infantry (8th and 49th), four companies of the Royal Scots and 104th, a few artillery men and militia to make head against the entire American army which still consisted of two battalions of artillery, one of dragoons, one of rifles, and ten of infantry.

Besides being almost destitute of tents, blankets, and camp-furniture, many of his men were in rags and without shoes. They were ill-fed and their pay was many months in arrears. As they approached the enemy, desertions.

became numerous.

But the inactivity of the American army, and the arrival of the remaining companies of the first battalion of the Royal Scots and the 104th-about the middle of July,encouraged him to throw forward his right wing to Queenston, and fix his headquarters at St. Davids. His lines then extended from lake to river, a distance of about seven miles, confining the enemy to the ground they actually occupied, and preventing them from drawing any supplies from that side of the river. He excused himself for not having employed Indians in the expeditions into New York, upon the ground that it was difficult to restrain them from the commission of acts of cruelty and indiscriminate plunder, but added, "they are daily engaged with the outposts harassing and teasing them all day long."

Alarm and doubt pervaded the American camp. General Dearborn had been removed from the command, but Boyd, his successor, scarcely seemed more resolute or enterprising. The strength of the British reinforcement was much exaggerated and rendered him apprehensive of an assault. "The enemy are reinforcing every day," wrote an American officer on the 16th July. "We are encircled, they are in our front, the lake in our rear and flanks, and we do not hold any more ground than that on which we stand." "I think our situation very critical," said another. "The enemy are nearly in sight of our pickets. Their force it gaining every dayours diminishing. We are attacked and harassed every night."

From the same source it is learned that a foraging party was attacked by Indians at Butler's Farm, on the 17th July. Three men were killed and nine wounded, and the detachment sent out to its support revenged themselves by burning Butler's house and farm-buildings. Three days later a detachment of militia was surprised and routed, losing seven of their number, and an entire brigade of more than a thousand men, which marched out hastily to their relief, skirmished fruitlessly for several hours.

A LETTER OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.

By MR. DAVID R. MCCORD, M.A., Etc.

Mr. L. O. Armstrong was good enough to send me a photographic copy of the letter of General Benedict Arnold, dated Dead River, Oct. 13, 1775, which had been found among the papers of his late father Judge Armstrong, and which appeared in Vol. I of CANADIANA, page 111. I recognized the letter immediately as being one familiar for the last fifty years to the students of this period of American history.

This letter is addressed first to John Mercier, and what happened is this: The "faithful Indian Eneas," either betrayed Arnold by delivering the letter to the Lieut.-Governor at Quebec, or the Indian was intercepted and the letter taken from him. From memory I incline to the first of these theories. Certain it was that the letter got into the possession of the Lieut.-Governor, and on the 28th October, Mr. Mercier was arrested, his papers seized and put on board an armed vessel. Certain citizens of Quebec thereupon held a meeting and called on the Lieut.-Governor to ascertain the cause of the arrest. He intimated that he had sufficient reason therefor. Subsequently he took into his confidence certain British officers of the Militia and communicated to them one or more intercepted letters directed to Mr. Mercier of a nature sufficient to warrant the above action on his part. I presume the Armstrong letter to have been one of these. It was not, however, shewn that anything treasonable had proceeded from Mr. Mercier.

I do not pronounce upon the genuineness of the letter. It would be interesting to know, if possible, how it came into Judge Armstrong's possession. I think I have heard it said that it belonged to his father. The word Quebec at this time was very generally spelt with a terminal k, which is absent in the letter before us, and in some of the published letters of Arnold's, Quebec is thus spelt. It might be that Arnold, as a precaution, duplicated this and other letters, and the one we are now considering may be one of the dupli

cates.

Another point strikes me at once. This letter has been sometimes supposed in the United States to be addressed to one John Manir. The name Mercier in the letter is so written that to one unaccustomed to the French language, it could fairly be mistaken for Manir.